The Balanced Diet

If the topic came up, at this point in my life, I would tell you that I had recovered from an eating disorder. While that is not a lie, it also isn't the whole truth. To me, the word "recovered" implies that the problem has been resolved. There are no more disturbed thoughts or actions, and the person has a completely healthy outlook on food. The fact of the matter is that I don't think anyone ever fully recovers from an eating disorder. For most people, it is a life long battle. Recovering is probably a better word, but unfortunately, that implies that the person is still in the throes of mental health treatment, which at this point, I am not.

I think about my past quite a bit. I think about it because I never want to revisit the darkness that consumed me in high school and nearly killed me in college. While I pray that I never relapse, I also know how easy it is to slip backwards. I often liken my anorexia and bulimia to a drug addiction. I needed it. It consumed me. Eventually I no longer controlled my behavior, but rather the disorder controlled me. It sought me out, followed me like a black shadow, if not in the foreground, then never far from my mind.

I may not currently engage in many of the risky behaviors that I once did, but I think about them frequently. Truth be told, some of the behaviors have not fully left me. While I have managed to keep the more dangerous ones under wraps, I still have times when I make wayward choices. I may never take another diet pill (God, I pray that I do not), but I consider it often. Just like I think about smoking cigarettes several times a week, I also contemplate employing ridiculous weight loss tactics. If I ate nothing but cucumbers for two weeks, could I lose ten pounds? Probably. Would that be wise? No. Better not. I think about my disorder because I do not want to repeat it, but I also think about it because it stalks me. No matter how old I get, no matter how "healthy" I feel, I fear that I will never fully change my mindset. I will be forever haunted, if ever so slightly, by my tainted past.

When I was in college, I saw a counselor who specialized in eating disorders. She told me to replace the thoughts which compelled me to binge and purge with something constructive. It was good advice, but I was never able to really implement it. I overcame the eating disorder not by regrouping and refocusing, but rather by using the same control tactics that allowed me to develop the sickness in the first place. I just decided that I wasn’t going to do it any more and I broke the habit. I may have stopped the actions, but that is all I did. I treated the symptoms, not the cause. I never truly eradicated the distorted thoughts that were fueling the ailment in the first place.

With that knowledge, I have to ask myself, is the obsession with healthy eating that I have developed over the last 2 years simply an extension of my old demons? Maybe. Probably. But perhaps this is the way to finally focus those unhealthy obsessions into something beneficial. If I cannot eliminate my fixation with food, then perhaps I can at least change the direction my focus from a detrimental obsession to a constructive zeal for health. It’s that little matter of checks and balances, maintaining a healthful ardor, rather than allowing it to become a damaging fervor, that is the crux. It always boils down to the age-old quest for balance, doesn’t it?

This battle with food and with body image is pervasive in our society. If you have not battled with food yourself, I’m sure you know someone who has or is currently struggling to some degree. There are the people who are constantly battling weight, unhappy with the way they look, constantly dieting, making yo-yo progress, or no progress at all, sometimes trying gimmicks, but never really doing anything extreme. It affects most of us on some level, and unlike a drug addiction, cannot be treated through exclusion tactics, but must rather be treated with some semblance of balance. You don’t give a recovering drug addict his drug of choice and say, “only use a little of this.” It doesn’t work that way. But food is a different story. While heroin can kill us, we must eat to live.

Humans are by nature not creatures of equilibrium. We crave excess. We’re greedy, we’re hoarders, we’re self-righteous and power-seeking. We desire to fit in, to dominate, to be respected, and to have control. These innate desires, if left unchecked, can spiral out of our control and become counter-productive, the direct opposite of our true intentions.

I don’t know the secret to balance. Balance has evaded me for years. Perhaps it is something that comes with age and wisdom. Perhaps it comes with exhaustion and exasperation. What I do know is that in balance lies contentment and happiness. I suppose that alone makes the pursuit worthwhile, and I will continue seeking it throughout my life.